5/21/05 at 09:16 PM
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THE FOLLOWING INFO IS A JDR EXCLUSIVE.
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I've just learned that Philadelphia author Joseph Gangemi is working on a screenplay adaptation of his book INAMORATA for Johnny and his production company Infinitum Nihil.
This news has not been officially announced as yet. I've heard that once all of the paperwork is in order that this project will be announced, therefore this project could be announced today, tomorrow or months from now... so remember you heard it here first. I just wanted to give y'all a heads up as we've received the info about this. I understand that Mr. Gangemi has been working on this project for Johnny's company for almost a year now and it is about to go live. There is no word yet whether Johnny will produce or star in this vehicle.
I've contacted the author about a Q&A with us knowing that we will want to add this to our reading list, but wait just a bit before buying your book.
Here's what AMAZON says about INAMORATA:
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Set in the Roaring '20s and steeped in period detail, this energetic debut is narrated by one Martin Finch, a psychology graduate student at Harvard. Possessed of a wry sense of humor, a practical intelligence and an appropriately skeptical interest in the supernatural, Finch is tapped by the department chairman, Dr. William McLaughlin, to help him judge a Scientific American contest that promises $5,000 to anyone with "conclusive evidence of psychic phenomena." Before Finch and McLaughlin arrive in Manhattan for their first encounter with the paranormal, Gangemi has given the reader a thumbnail history of the Spiritualist movement, which had its heyday in the years after World War I and was championed by the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle. History notwithstanding, the narrative moves at a brisk pace: Finch and McLaughlin quickly expose two mediums as frauds before evaluating the formidable talents of Mina Crawley, the wife of a Philadelphia doctor. Finch travels to Philly as McLaughlin's agent to meet the lovely and charming seeress, and stays for several weeks in the Crawley household as he wrestles with his central conflict: his affection for Mina versus his mandate to determine whether she's a fraud. The novel turns into a slightly bawdy thriller, and the narrative vigor rarely flags as Finch pursues strange paths in the City of Brotherly Love. Gangemi is an extremely adept writer, though frequent wisecracks and references to popular songs and consumer products of the 1920s wear thin. His plot, too, is a bit weak, but this is an undeniably clever concept and an enjoyable read.
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Here is some info about Mr. Gangemi from his website:
Joseph Gangemi
Joseph Gangemi was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1970. An early love of science fiction took him to the Clarion Writers Workshop (that genre's Iowa) in 1986, where he was the youngest attendee in the workshop's history. Shortly thereafter he made his first professional sale, publishing a short story in the "speculative fiction" anthology FULL SPECTRUM II (Bantam Doubleday, 1989).
In 1992 Joe graduated from Swarthmore, a small Quaker liberal arts college outside Philadelphia, with a degree in psychology, and commenced the long apprenticeship required of writers. During this time he paid the rent by working as a waiter, a translator for a Russian shell corporation (though he doesn't speak Russian), a receptionist for a private detective agency, a fundraiser for an order of Catholic priests, and a Kelly Girl. Eventually his typing skills landed him at a small consulting firm, where he worked his way up to a senior position as communications consultant to such corporate clients as DuPont and Conoco.
In 1995 his friend Jon Cohen, a Swarthmore native and novelist, approached Joe about collaborating on a screenplay. The partnership produced CROSSOVER, a thriller about a team of vampire heart surgeons, which was subsequently optioned by Interscope Films. (Jon would go on to pen the Steven Spielberg thriller MINORITY REPORT.)
Several solo screenplays followed for Joe, resulting eventually in the 1997 spec sale of BLACK ICE to New Line Cinema. Retiring from the corporate world, Joe devoted himself full-time to screenwriting, working on open writing assignments such as a (unproduced) big screen adaptation of Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT for Warner Brothers, as well as original scripts like ELIZA GRAVES, which is tentatively slated for production by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions in 2004. Currently, Joe is completing a 1970s-set thriller in the tradition of THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR for Tobey Maguire and Columbia Pictures.
Joe's ongoing interest in unexplored footnotes in history has lead to him writing -- over ten intense months of 2002 -- his first novel.
INAMORATA will be published in hardcover by Viking on January 26, 2004. Set in 1920s Philadelphia, and featuring a cast of skeptical graduate students, morphine addicts, beguiling spirit-mediums, sadistic gynecologists, peg-legged Filipino butlers, and a talkative ghost (who bites), INAMORATA takes place only a few blocks from the Rittenhouse Square home where Joe currently resides with his longtime girlfriend, PR executive Stacey Himes.
FYI: Joseph and Stacey were married on March 12 of this year.